December 10, 2004... December 10, 2004 -- I unloaded early this morning at O'Fallon, Missouri at a grocery warehouse. My delivery appointment was at 5:00 AM. I was unloaded by around 6:30 AM. After that, I parked on their property and slept until around noon.

When I woke up at noon, I had a bit of a headache. That usually only happens whenever I really screw up my sleeping patterns for two or three days in a row. This time it happened after only one time. I went to bed last night around 12:30 AM and then got up at 4:30 AM to check in with the receiver at 5:00 AM.

After I woke up at noon, I headed to the nearest truck stop west of O'Fallon, Missouri at exit 203 on I-70 -- a T/A truck stop. I ate lunch, hoping the headache would go away by the time I was up for a couple of hours. It wasn't, so I took some Bayer aspirin. I wish I would have taken it before I ate so it could have gone to work sooner. All together, it took nearly 5 hours for the headache to go away from the time I woke up.

Around 3:00 PM, the company finally sent me a new load. It loads at Edwardsville, Illinois, another St. Louis, Missouri suburb. I got my trailer washed out and dropped it at the shipper. The load I'm picking up won't be loaded until sometime on Saturday so I'm spending the night at the Edwardsville, Illinois Flying J truck stop a couple of miles away from the warehouse.

The new load delivers in Waxahachie, Texas Tuesday afternoon at 4:00 PM, so I'm obviously going to end up with some layover pay as compensation for being on a load that many days that only travels 688 miles from origin to destination. I've got a friend here in St. Louis that I can spend some time with, as well as friends in Dallas, Texas which is along the way so I'll likely be able to keep myself productively occupied along the way.
  ¶ 11:43 PM